PRESS RELEASE A Cross-Cultural Learning Experience between Canton and Cape Town

PRESS RELEASE

5/27/2014

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CANTON, Mich., May 27, 2014—A teacher at Achieve Charter Academy
is about to embark on a global journey to establish a learning opportunity for students
in her classroom, and students in a classroom in Cape Town, South Africa.

Middle school
science teacher Kim Jaster will travel to Africa in July to teach students at
Cape Academy of Math, Science, and Technology about solar cars and their
relationship with alternative energy. She hopes this trip will be the first of
many to share educational expertise about science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) skills.

“The heart of
America’s educational renaissance is STEM and its connectedness is the secret,”
said Jaster. “With it, students get the relevance they need to be more mindful
about their learning.”

Jaster said
the school is working in collaboration with Eastern Michigan University on this
project. Achieve students will complete a science project in their classroom,
make a video of how they did it, and send it with Jaster to share with the
students at Cape Town as their first introduction.

Eventually,
the goal is to have students in the two classrooms provide lessons to each
other through the help of a computer technology called Raspberry Pi, a computer
that functions without electricity which is in short supply in Africa.

The school
has also partnered with the Sonlig Project to have the video and curricular
content developed by our students and loaded onto a version of the Sonlig
Mobile Digital library.The students at
Cape Town can use the devices to review the lessons and build their own solar
cars.

Jaster said
she is hopeful this project will take off quickly and provide her students with
a greater global awareness. “I hope my students will have a new perspective
that highlights education as a tool for a better life…not just a test score to
achieve. When people touch hands with people across great distances, the quest
for global interdependence and peace becomes reachable.”